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Ten Percent Distortion?

I have a little Panasonic SA-XR25 digital receiver for my TV rig (I can't really call it HT). Driving some good speakers it sounds great, and cost me all of $287. Tonight I was killing some time wandering around the Best Buy shop looking at similar electronics from Panasonic, and others, and I noticed that output power was quoted at 10 percent distortion! At first I thought this was a missprint, surely they meant 1 percent or even 0.1 percent. However several units, from several manufacturers, were described this way. Back home I quickly checked the SA-XR25 spec and was reassured to find a reasonable 0.3 percent stated.

What the heck is going on? Wouldn't 100 watts at 0.3 percent sell better than 140 watts at 10 percent?
eldartford

Showing 2 responses by trelja

trelja
3,223 posts
 
I agree with vinylphile.
trelja
3,223 posts
 
Personally, while you can find a decent sounding component as BestBuy once in a blue moon, the stuff they carry is the antithesis of what almost all of us here are searching for.

Distortion, watts, whatever. I found out a long time ago, these specs mean little in the grand scheme of things. Show me a 250 wpc Panasonic, Sony, or what have you, and I will show you a 50 wpc high end amp that walks all over it when it comes to power. Remember, there are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics. Power is speced through an 8 ohm RESISTIVE load, playing a 1 KHz sine wave. But, almost all speakers are reactive(not a flat load), and many are highly so. Further, we listen to MUSIC(not a flat signal), not test tones - at least, most of us do(I do see far too many audiophiles who care more about how their system measures than they do about music) .

So, what do these specs reaallly tell you???

But, yes, for the massfi buyer, I would think that 100 wpc at 0.3% sounds better than 140 wpc at 10%.
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